Intellectual muscle

STEM cells from the brain can be transformed into muscle, researchers in Italy have found. Such cells could provide an inexhaustible supply of material for treating muscle-wasting disorders such as muscular dystrophy. The researchers have also found clues to what triggers the stem cells to change.

Angelo Vescovi and his colleagues at the National Neurological Institute in Milan, Italy, have shown that adult stem cells from mouse brains become muscle cells when implanted in the muscles of live mice. And when human adult stem cells extracted from the brains of miscarried fetuses are implanted in mouse muscle, they too turn into muscle cells. The team had already demonstrated that mouse brain cells could turn into blood cells (This Week, 19 August, p 16).

Scientists used to think that "adult" stem cellsthose produced after the embryo becomes a fetus and the organs start to developcan only turn into tissue from ...

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